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"The Oldest House in the 
United States" 

St. Augustine, Fla. 

An examination of the St. Augustine 
Historical Society's claim that its house 
on St. Francis Street was built in the 
year 1 565 by the Franciscan Monks 

By CHARLES B. REYNOLDS 









^ilf'/j^j, . ^ 



NEW YORK 
THE FOSTER & REYNOLDS COMPANY 

1921 



.'^ Z-F3S 



"The Oldest House in the United States'' 



THE PURPOSE OF THE INQUIRY. 

St. Augustine is famed as the oldest town in the United States. 
Because of its age one looks for old things. The visiting tourist expects 
to find relics of the distant past, material tokens of the city's romantic 
history. But except for the Fort, the Gateway and the narrow streets, 
there are no such reminders here. In the absence of genuine antiquities, 
mercenary ingenuity has invented spurious ones. The stranger knowing 
no better accepts the false for the true. 

Under these circumstances an extensive and flourishing system of 
faking has been developed to coax the coin from the winter tourist. 
As a rule, the inventors and promoters of the fakes are not natives nor 
old-time residents.* Not being of St. Augustine stock, they have no 
pride in the town to make them jealous of its good name. 1 hey are 
not in the least troubled that their dishonest practices give the town 
notoriety as a city of fakes. They tell their revenue-producing lies 
with such assurance and repetition that some of the home folks them- 
selves after a time accept the frauds, and not only grant the fakers im- 
munity, but when the fakes are attacked rally to the defense of them 
and cry out that the business interests of the town are in jeopardy. 

This was just what happened last winter when I published an article 
on the "Fakes of St. Augustine," and at the next meeting of the Board 
of Trade excited members (including the City Manager) took the floor 
to denounce the "attack," and at a meeting of the Historical Society 
the wail went up that "every business interest of St. Augustine had 
been damaged." The fakes, it will be noted, are "business interests." 

There is an organization which bears the name of the St. Augustine 
Historical Society and Institute of Science. Notwithstanding the con- 
ventional import of such a title, the Society exploits the most audacious 
of the "oldest house" fakes. The anomaly of the situation is to be 

plained by one of two assumptions: Either the St. Augustine His- 

orical Society is so ignorant of St. Augustine history and so credulous, 

as honestly to accept the lies told to it and by it told to others about 

the age of its St. Francis street house; or else the Society knows the 

history of St. Augustine, knows therefore that the story of the age of 



*The individual who is the chief promoter of and profiler by the 
Society's St. P>ancis street house enterprise and to whom the Society 
farms out its commercialization of Fort Marion is a person who is 
not a citizen of St. Augustine nor of Florida. 



the house is a lie, and yet for its own reasons sponsors the date and 
hoaxes the pubHc. It is for the Society to tell us which of the two 
assumptions it would have us adopt as the one more in keeping with the 
character and dignity of a historical society. 



In the spring of 1920, visiting St. Augustine after an absence of 
some years, I found flourishing there three varieties of fakes for tourists. 
In the Florida Standard Guide and in an article in Mr. Foster's Travel 
Magazine (January, 1 92 1 ) I described what I had seen and heard — 
the Ponce de Leon mission cross fake, the string of lies told by the 
Society's guide who conducted my party through the Fort, and two of 
the oldest house fakes, in particular that of the Historical Society on 
St. Francis street. Events in the city's history were recalled and his- 
torical authorities were cited to demonstrate that the Ponce de Leon 
mission and the oldest house were fictions ; and the suggestion was made 
that the mercenary deceptions ought to be suppressed for the sake of the 
city's good name. 

The action which followed on the part of the Historical Society 
was reported in the St. Augustine Evening Record of March 9: 

"At a regular meeting of the St. Augustine Historical Society and 
Institute of Science, held in the reading rooms of the Hotel Ponce de 
Leon Tuesday evening, Chauncey M. Depew, of New York, presi- 
dent of the organization, presided, and . . . put the question, unani- 
mously carried, placing the Society on record as not disposed to 
dignify the alleged slanderous articles of C. B. Reynolds with a reply, 
but to again assert to the world the belief of the St. Augustine His- 
torical Society members that the dates and data it sets forth are right 
and correct, cannot be disproved, and are as near the facts as true lovers 
of history can establish from meagre historical records and priceless 
traditions handed down from father to son." 

The Record of April 12th published a letter in which I said: 

"I assume that we are all sincerely desirous of establishing the truth 
about the Historical Society's house on St. Francis street and about the 
Ponce de Leon coquina cross. As one step toward that end I suggest 
that a committee of investigation be selected, say of five members, 
three to be named by the Historical Society and the Board of Trade 
and two by me. My only stipulation is that no individual who is per- 
sonally making money out of the Society's activities shall have place 
on the committee. I will very gladly submit my evidences, drawn from 
the contemporaneous records of the time, which I think will show be- 
yond any dispute the falsity of the claims which have been called in 
question by me, namely, that the house on St. Francis street was built 



by Franciscan monks in 1565, and that the coquina cross belonged to 
a religious mission established by Ponce de Leon in 1513. 

"I invite the Historical Society and the Board of Trade to join with 
me in such an endeavor to establish the truth, and I request that the 
findings of the committee may be given publication in the Record." 

And I added that I thought I had "a right to expect the support of 
the citizens of the town, the Board of Trade and all members of the 
Historical Society who are solicitous for the ascertainment of the truth." 

e^ <s^ <s^ 

The Historical Society and the Board of Trade having declined my 
invitation for an inquiry into the truth of the matters under review, 1 
am now submitting to a wider consideration, with respect to the St. 
Francis street house, what I had intended to lay before the committee. 
In essential respects it is a repetition of what was said in the article on 
"The Fakes of St. Augustine," but with more detail and with citations 
of chapter and verse for the historical sources quoted. It was intended 
also to submit to the committee the several works referred to that the 
correctness of the references might be verified. Those who are inter- 
ested will doubtless find the volumes in the library of the Historical 
Society, though it is difficult to reconcile the Society's having them 
with the curious notion held by the members that we are obliged to rely 
on priceless traditions handed down from father to son. 



SOME HELPFUL DATES. 
1565. Pedro Menendez establishes St. Augustine. 
1586. Francis Drake burns St. Augustine. 
1665. John Davis burns St. Augustine. 
1 702. Governor Moore burns St, Augustine. 

1 763. Florida is ceded to Great Britain. Spanish leave. English 
occupy St. Augustine. 

I 783. Florida is retroceded to Spain. English leave. Spanish 
occupy St. Augustine. 

1 82 I . Florida ceded to United States. Spanish leave. St. Aug- 
ustine becomes an American tow^n. 



THE HOUSE ON ST. FRANCIS STREET. 

In the year 1 882 G. F. Acosta, administrator of the estate of Mrs. 
E. A. Acosta, petitioned the Court for an order to sell the lot at the 
corner of Marine and St. Francis streets, for the benefit of the infant 
owners. The petition drawn by his attorney, C. M. Cooper, set up that 
the large lot had its greatest value from its frontage on Marine street, 
that it was vacant except for an old dilapidated house rented to 
negroes, "from which no more had been received than money to pay 
the taxes, and at times not enough to pay the taxes," and that "the 
property as it stands yields no rent." 

The Court having granted the order of sale, the lot was sold; the 
building on it was rehabilitated from its negro occupancy, and was 
enlarged, extended both on the east and on the west, and variously 
altered. Shortly thereafter it was used by the new owner for the business 
of oldest house. Succeeding owners exploited it for the same purpose, 
and in 1918 the business was taken over by the St. Augustine His- 
torical Society and Institute of Science. Because of the prestige given 
by its name the Society has largely developed the business, for the 
popular notion of a historical society leads the average person to accept 
as fact what such a society says on a historical subject. The tens of 
thousands of persons who have visited the Society's house on St. Francis 
street presumably have believed the statement because made by a "his- 
torical society," that the house was built by Franciscan monks in 1565 
and is the oldest house in the United States. 

Like every historical assertion made by a historical society, this one 
is a legitimate subject of examination, to test its accuracy. Such an 
examination if thoroughly and honestly made will disclose whether the 
Society's claim for the antiquity of the house is based on historic truth, 
or whether the building in its character of "oldest house" is the fake 
that I said it was in my article on "The Fakes of St. Augustine." 

It is such an inquiry that I propose to make in the pages which follow. 



THE RECORDS. 

The year 1565, when the Society says its house was built, was the 
year in which Pedro Menendez de Aviles established Fort St. Augus- 
tine. It was long ago, but the records of the time are available. Con- 
temporary accounts were written by Mendoza ( I ) , who was Menendez's 
chaplain, and by Meras(2), brother-in-law of Menendez and official 
chronicler of the enterprise. Menendez (3) himself wrote long letters 
to the King and to others. Barrientos(4), who was a friend of Men- 
endez's, wrote a history based on Menendez's own official report to the 
King. Barcia(5) in a later work drew his material from original 
sources. The "Unwritten History" compiled by Miss A. M. Brooks (6) 
contributes to our information. In these several records may be found 
material to determine the points at issue. 

(i) Relacion hecha per el Capellan de Armada Francisco Lopez 
de Mendoza, del viaje que hizo el Adelantado Pedro Menendez de 
Aviles a la Florida. 

(2) Memorial que hizo el Doctor Gonzalo Solis de Meras de todas 
las jornadas y sucesos del Adelantado Pedro Menendez de Aviles, 
su cunado, y de la Conquista de la Florida y Justicia que hizo en 
Juan Ribao y otros franceses. 

(3) Cartas de Pedro Menendez de Aviles. 

The three foregoing are reprinted in Eugenio Rudiaz y Caravia's 
"La Florida, su conquista y colonizacion por Pedro Menendez de 
Aviles," Madrid, 1893. The references to the several works are to 
the pages of the Rudiaz volumes in which they are printed. 

(4) Vida y hechos de Pero Menendez de Auiles. . . Compuesta por 
el maestro barrientos, Catredatico de salamanca, 1568. In Dos An- 
tiquas Relaciones de la Florida publicalas por primera vez por Genaro 
Garcia, Mexico, 1902. 

(5) Ensayo Cronologico para la Historia General de la Florida, 
por Don Gabriel de Cardenas z Cano [Barcia], Madrid, 1723, 

(6) The Unwritten History of St. Augustine, copied from the 
Spanish Archives in Seville, Spain, by Miss A. M. Brooks, and trans- 
lated by Mrs. Annie Averette, St. Augustine. 

How the St. Augustine Historical Society esteemed the work of 
Miss Brooks was told by President De Witt Webb in his address 
before the Society, March 14, 1917: "In alluding to the early members 
of the Society, I should have mentioned as among the most active 
and valuable, the labors of Miss A, M. Brooks. Her book, The Un- 
written History of St. Augustine,' is of the greatest value, and all her 
work for the Society ... was devoted to its best interests." (Year 
Book, 1916-1917, page 8.) 

(7) Souvenir of the Two Oldest Relics in the United States: 
Oldest House and Fort Marion, St. Augustine, Fla. Illustrated in 
colors with history. Published under the auspices of the St Augus- 
tine Historical Society and Institute of Science. 1920. This is quoted, 
not for historical data, but for the Society's statements respecting the 
age of the house. The audacious mendacity of the booklet gives it an 
unique place among publications of historical societies. 

8 



THE SOCIETY'S CLAIMS RESPECTING THE HOUSE. 

Concerning its house the St. Augustine Historical Society makes the 
following assertions: 

The sign on the outside of the building at the entrance reads: 

"The Oldest House in the United States under three flags, St. 
Francis Street, St. Augustine, Florida. 

"It is recorded in the archives of the Church that this house was 
occupied by the monks of St. Francis from 1565 to 1590. 

"The chapel they used can still be seen. 

"In 1590 it came into possession of a deputy of the Spanish Gov- 
ernment and descended in the same family until 1 882. The present 
owner has documents proving this." 

In the circular distributed to tourists is said: 

"The Oldest House was erected in the year 1565 by the Franciscan 
monks. There are other old houses, but this is the OLDEST. To 
avoid being disappointed, look for the sign on the door. 'Oldest House 
in the U. S., property of Historical Society of St. Augustine.' If you 
do not see this sign, you are not at the oldest house, on St. Francis 
street." 

The booklet sold in the house and elsewhere, entitled "Souvenir of 
the Two Oldest Relics in the United States," sets forth: 

"Oldest House in the United States, 
"St. Augustine, Florida. 

"This building is owned by the St. Augustine Historical Society and 
Institute of Science. 

"It was used by the monks who came with Pedro Menendez, the 
founder of St. Augustine, in 1565, and was occupied by them until the 
completion of the larger coquina monastery across the street in 1 590. 

"From that time until comparatively recent years it has been the 
home of many noted Spanish, English and American families. 

"After a careful investigation extending over more than a year, of 
records, data and maps, from Spain, the British Museum and the 
archives at Washington, the antiquity of this building was established 
to the satisfaction of the Historical Society and Institute of Science, 
and in order that it might be properly preserved for future generations, 
was purchased by it on November 15, 1918. 

"The walls of the house are of coquina and the lower floors of 
coquina mortar. 

"The largest room on the upper floor was the chapel. At the rear 
of the upper floor is a small room in which the monks slept. [The lec- 

9 



turer adds that the monks contemplated the coffin-shaped ceiling for 
penance.] 

"In the main living room is a very large open fireplace, which now, 
as in the days of long ago, radiates a cheerful glow on cool days. 

"The old circular well at the rear of the house, blessed by the Fran- 
ciscan monks, has a never-ending interest for the tourist. There is a 
tradition that he who makes a wish while looking into this well will 
have it granted within a year." 

A sign on the wall in the large upper room tells us : 

"This room was the chapel used by the Franciscan monks from 1 565 
to 1 590. The floor and ceiling are original and of cedar." 

There is shown a prie dieu or prayer bench which the souvenir book- 
let explains "was used by the Franciscan monks during their occupancy 
of this house." 

The Society says that traditions attaching to the house justify its 
claims of age for the building. 



lO 



EXAMINATION OF THE SOCIETY'S CLAIMS. 

Claim A — That the house was built in 1565 by Franciscan 

Monks. 

Menendez sailed from Cadiz June 29th, 1565, with eleven ships, in 
advance of the rest of the fleet. With him vv^ere seven priests, three of 
whom deserted at Porto Rico. (Mendoza, Vol, II, page 437.) He 
proceeded to Florida without waiting for the other squadrons. 

The missionaries who were enlisted in the expedition, including 
eleven Franciscan friars and one lay brother, a friar of the Order of 
Mercy, a priest and eight members of the Order of Jesus, sailed later 
with Pedro Menendez Marquez and Esteban de las Alas. (Meras, 
Vol. I, page 63. Barcia, page 69.) 1 hey were delayed by storms 
and many of the ships turned back. The record does not show how 
many of the Franciscans if any reached Havana with Menendez Mar- 
quez in December, 1565, or with Las Alas in January, 1566. 

From St. Augustine Menendez went to Cuba in November, 1565, 
and wr->te to the King from Matanzas, December 5, 1 565 : "I found at 
Havana . . . Pedro Menendez Marquez, my cousin, with three ships. . . 
The fleet of Santo Domingo [that of Las Alas] up to this day has not 
arrived at Havana." (Menendez, Vol. II, page 110.) Las Alas 
reached Havana early in January. (Meras, Vol. I, page 149.) 

Further and conclusive evidence is contained in a letter written by 
Menendez from St. Augustine on October 15, 1566, to a Jesuit friend, 
in which he says: "I felt lost on finding that no members of the Re- 
ligious order had arrived. . . I am sure that members of the ReHgious 
orders could accomplish more in one month teaching the Doctrine than 
military men can accomplish in many years. . . I have sent a few boys 
and soldiers to teach them the Christian Doctrine. . . It has been a great 
mistake that none of your Order nor an}) other Religious have come to 
teach them." — Ninguno de l^uesiras mercedes ni oiros Religiosos.'' 
(Historia de la Compaiiia de Jesus en la provincia de Toledo, tomo 2, 
folio 153.) 

From all of which it is manifest that in 1565 there were no Francis- 
cans in St. Augustine either to build the house or to occupy it. The 
Society's assertion that the house was built by Franciscan monks and 
occupied by them in 1565 is thus shown to be untrue. 

CONDITIONS IN 1565 PRECLUDED HOUSE BUILDING. 

Nor is it credible that the house should then have been built by 
others, for conditions at the post in 1565 were such as to preclude the 
work of constructing stone houses. St. Augustine was then a fortified 
camp, governed by the Maestre de Campo, the camp master, h'roro 
the shelter of the camp the soldiers and others ventured at their peril 

II 



because of the hostile Indians. They were in constant fear of the sav- 
ages, short of rations, chronically hungry, mutinous and plotting to leave 
the country. 

On October 15, 1565, Menendez wrote to the King: "From the 
burning of the Fort we suffer very great hunger, and the biscuit that 
was landed here is spoiling and being used up and unless we are speedily 
succored we shall suffer and many will pass out of this world from 
starvation." (Menendez, Vol. II, page 101.) 

In November he went to Cuba for supplies. On December 5th he 
wrote from Matanzas to the King: "I shall do everything in my 
power to send on provisions for the people there . . . for they have 
nothing there to eat. . . Unless they can be succored or unless God 
sustains them, one of two things must happen, either they will perish 
with hunger or break with the Indians on account of taking food from 
them." (Menendez, Vol. II, page 106.) He despatched a ship from 
Havana with provisions and supplies. 

On January 30, 1566, in a letter to the King he reported: "Two 
days ago arrived Captain Diego de Amaya, who sailed . . . with pro- 
visions for the Forts of St. Augustine and San Mateo, and he brought 
me news that he arrived safely at Fort St. Augustine . . . that in the cold 
of winter being ill clothed more than one hundred persons [at the two 
Forts] died, and that they were in very great necessity of food and 
still are." (Menendez, Vol. II, page 144.) 

It is not to be believed that people who were starving, dodging 
Indians and plotting to get away, were over on Anastasia Island, quarry- 
ing coquina, transporting it across the bay and building houses of it. 

While it is not to the purpose to follow the fortunes of St. Augustine 
during the years immediately succeeding, the fact is suggestive that the 
same conditions of hardship continued. In 1570, when Las Alas 
returned to Spain with some of his soldiers to report on the conditions 
then existing in Florida, Geronimo de Sobrado testified that there were 
divided among the three forts 150 soldiers, and in St. Augustine there 
were one married man and his wife. There were fifteen or sixteen 
mares in St. Augustine, and ten or twelve cows. "They cannot maintain 
them because the mosquitoes eat them up and the Indians kill them. 
There are no vegetables. There is fish, but those who go fishing are 
always in danger of being killed by the Indians." Francisco Duarte 
testified as to St. Augustine: "The soldiers are poorly armed. They 
have used their armor for shirts, not having anything else to wear. They 
need everything. In San Pedro the soldiers are also naked. In Santa 
Elena the soldiers are in the same condition. Among all the fifty soldiers 
of each fort there are not six shirts" — no habia seis camisas (Diligencias 
hechas en Sevilla con motivo de la venida de Esteban de las Alas, de 
la Florida. Ruidiaz, Vol. II, pp. 572-579). 

12 



Claim B — That the house built in 1565 was built here. 

In 1565 there was no St. Augustine here. A house built in the 
St. Augustine of 1565 would have been built not here, but somewhere 
else, for St. Augustine then occupied a different site, as is shown by 
the records. 

From Cuba where he had gone in 1565, Menendez sailed on Feb- 
ruary 25, 1566, to explore southern Florida. He returned to St. 
Augustine in March and afterwards went to visit San Mateo and Santa 
Elena. In May he returned to St. Augustine. Barrientos (page 115) 
records: "He arrived in St, Augustine on May 18th, his arrival 
causing much jo}^ for they certainly were much afflicted with hunger 
and worn out by the fighting with the Indians. Entering in council with 
the captains, it was agreed to move the Fort from there to the entrance 
of the inlet, because there the Indians could not do so much damage, 
and they could the better defend themselves against the entrance of enemy 
vessels. . . The following day they went to the inlet and traced the site 
of the Fort, which they began building with great industry . . . with an 
understanding of the haste required in building the Fort. They worked 
with perfect order, fearing the Indians would surprise and assault them. 
In ten days the defense was moderately secure, the artillery in position. 
Up to that time no vessel with the relief had arrived. They were in 
danger of starvation." 

In May of the following year (1567) Menendez returned to Spain. 
Before sailing from St. Augustine he ordered the building and gar- 
risoning of a number of blockhouses. One of these was to be erected at 
Palican on the Matanzas River, 5 leagues south of St. Augustine, an- 
other at Seloy, and another in Old St. Augustine — (Sant Agustin el 
biejo, "St. Augustine the old," or as we would say. Old St. Augus- 
tine). "These houses he ordered built in these places because they 
were their enemies and had never wished to make friends with the 
Christians." — Oira En Sant Agustin El biejo con sus soldados: estas 
casas mandava hacer en estas partes, porq eran de Enemigos q nunca 
auian querido la Amistad de los xpistianos. (Barrientos, page 141.) 

"The houses and people in Seloy, Old St. Augustine, Palican and 
Matanzas were to be subject and obedient in all things ordered by the 
mayor and governor of the Fort of St. Augustine." Las casas p gente 
q estubiesen en soloin, Sant Agustin El biejo, palican p matanzas Es- 
tubiesen subgetos p obedientes para todo lo que les mandase p ordenase 
El alcalde p governador del fuerte de Sant Agustin. (Barrientos, 
page 142.) 

The site of the first St Augustine is not known. That it must have 
been at a distance from the new site, to which it was moved in 1566, is 
indicated by the fact that it was so far away as to require its own for- 
tification and garrison. When Romans wrote in 1 776 the belief 

13 



was that riie original site of the town was at Moultrie, a point some 
five miles south. "We next meet the mouth of St. Nicholas creek, on 
the point to the north of which the first town was built by the Spaniards, 
but they soon removed it for conveniency's sake to its present site: on 
the south point is a plantation belonging to Mr. Moultrie, the present 
Lieutenant-Governor." (Bernard Romans, Concise Natural History 
of East and West Florida, 1776, page 266.) B. F. French says 
that St. Augustine was built "south of where it now stands on St. 
Nicholas creek." (Historical Collections of Louisiana and Florida, 
N. S., Vol. I. page 234.) 

Wherever the location was, the record shows that a house built in 
the Old St. Augustine (Sant Agustin el biejo) of 1565 could not have 
been built here on St. Francis street in the new situation of the city. 



14 



Claim C — That the house was built of coquina in 1565. 

A house in the St. Augustine of 1565 would have been built of 
wood, for coquina was then unknown. The rock was not discovered 
until 1580. 

In the Archives of the Indies (Relaciones de los Sucesos en la 
Florida) it is recorded under the year 1580 that "Martinez Avendano, 
being Governor of Florida, wrote to the King: 'I have to inform your 
Majesty that on the Island called Anastasia we have discovered a rock 
or stone of shell formation of which there will be enough to build the 
foundation of the Fort.' " This record Mrs. Annie Averette tells me 
was copied by Miss A. M. Brooks from the original in Seville. 

It follows that inasmuch as coquina had not then been found, the 
house was not built of coquina in 1565 by Franciscan monks or any 
other builders. 

If the house had been built of wood in 1565, twenty years after- 
ward it would have been burned. 

In 1586, on his way home from the West Indies, Francis Drake 
found a wooden town here. Writes Thomas Gates, who chronicled the 
voyage: "Going a mile up or somewhat more by the River side, we 
might descerne on the other side of the River over against us, a fort, 
which newly had bene built by the Spaniards, and some mile or there 
about, above the fort, was a little town or village without wals, built 
of woodden houses, as this plot here doth plainly shew." The "foote 
of the fort Wall was all massive timber of great trees like mastes.'* 
(Summarie and True Discourse of Sir Francis Drake's West-Indian 
Voyage, 1590, pages 34, 35.) A note on the "plot" says: "Th^ 
fort was called Saint John de Pinos, which afterward we burned." 
They then took "the town of St. Augustine, which being won at our 
departure was burned to the ground." 1 he account in De Bry de- 
scribes the town as built of wooden houses — ligneis aedibus exstructa, 
and says it was entirely destroyed by the English by fire — ab IngUs 
igne injecto plane devasiata est. De Bry's Americae, Pars VIII, 
Continens Descriptionem Trium Itinerum. . . Francisci Draken, Frank- 
fort, 1599. Tabula IX.) 

Barcia records that when Drake appeared the Governor retired to 
San Mateo, and that learning that Drake had gone on to Virginia, he 
decided to return. "He went by land with 200 soldiers to the town of 
St. Augustine, which he found reduced to ashes" — que hallo reducida a 
cenigas. "He brought back the inhabitants, sent for more people from 
San Mateo and began to rebuild or to build de novo the town of St. 
Augustine" — p empoco a reedificar, o edificar de nuevo, la Ciudad de 
San Agustin. (Ensayo Cronologico, page 163.) 

15 



The building material employed appears still to have been of wood, 
for thirteen years later a fire destroyed the church and the monastery. 
February 25, I 600, Fray Bias de Montes wrote from St. Augustine 
to the King: "In other letters I have written to your Majesty, I have 
given an account of the fire we had on the 1 4th of March of last year, 
1599, in this city. Among other houses burned with the church was 
ours." (Unwritten History, page 57.) Five years later Governor 
Pedro de Ibarra was concerned about the inflammable nature of the 
palmetto thatched roofs. He wrote to the King Dec. 26, 1605: 
"There is another matter to which I give much of my attention, and 
that is to be able to make lumber shingles with which to cover the 
roofs of the houses." (Manuscript in Library of Congress. The Lowery 
Collection, page 114.) 

St. Augustine has again and again been scourged by fire. In 1 662 
the pirate Davis burned the town. In 1 702 Governor Moore oi 
South Carolina after stealing the plate and ornaments of the church 
and driving all the inhabitants into the Fort, laid siege to the castle for 
three months, and then was "obliged to retreat, but not without first 
burning the town." (Report of the Committee of the South Carolina 
Assembly, July 1, 1 741.) Barcia's account has the expressive phrase, 
hecha Cinegas la Ciudad — "they made ashes of the city." (Ensayo 
Cronologico, page 320.) 



l6 



Claim D — That it has documents proving possession of the 
house in one family from 1590 to 1882. 

That the Society's house if built in 1565 should have escaped 
destruction through all these successive conflagrations would have been 
only less remarkable than the preservation of the documents which the 
Society says it has, showing the possession of the house by one Spanish 
family from 1590 to 1882. 

The Archives of St. Augustine have repeatedly been destroyed by 
fire, and those which have escaped destruction do not go back of the 
year 1 702. This was set forth in a deposition by the keeper of the 
Archives, who in I 763, testified in the land case of John Gordon. 
This case had to do with the estate of Palica, south of St. Augustine, 
the Palican already mentioned as the site of a blockhouse built in the 
time of Menendez. The testimony (The Case of Mr. John Gordon, 
London, 1772, Exhibit XXII) reads: "I, Don Joseph de Leon, His 
Majesty's notary publick for civil and military affairs, and inspector of 
the royal domain in this town and provinces of Florida, in the best form 
that I can, do certify, attest and give testimony that the archive of these 
provinces is in my custody, and it is in the same that must be deposited 
all instruments and writings about the deeds of sale and testamentary 
dispositions, as well as all those which relate to the rights and titles to 
lands and possessions. 

"But it so happens that the said archive has suffered great damages 
on various occasions. The first was in fifteen hundred eighty-seven, 
when Admiral Drake, an Englishman, entered and burnt this town 
of St. Augustine, when the archive perished in the flames: The second 
in the year sixteen hundred sixty-eight, when the French sacked and 
burnt it likewise ; and the instruments which were executed and registered 
from that time until the year seventeen hundred and one perished in the 
formal siege which Colonel Moore laid to this royal garrison, and who 
entirely destroyed the city by fire: and lastly in tne year sevemecn 
hundred and forty-four, when the house of the publick notary, Don 
Francisco de Castilla, which stood facing the sea-side, was set on fire, 
and a considerable part of the publick writings of the afore-mentioned 
tendency were likewise burned and destroyed: which publick writings 
were entrusted to his custody: but in the confusion that is usual in such 
cases, some papers were missed, many entirely burnt and consumed, 
and others stained and damaged by the water employed in putting out 
the fire: things of publick notoriety. The consequence of all those 
calamities was, that the said archive was deprived of almost all the 
documents that it contained: and although great diligence has been 
used in collecting many testimonials and vouchers of testaments, writings 
and other papers, which several of the inhabitants preserved and had 
still in their power, it was not possible to collect them all, as it is not 
the custom among us for each one to keep in his own custody the pre- 

17 



cise vouchers of the instruments which are authentically done, being 
satisfied that their originals are all preserved in the archive. . . I give 
the present certificate, dated in the town of St. Augustine in Florida, 
October the first, seventeen hundred sixty-three. 

Joseph de Leon, 
"His Majesty's notary publick for civil and military affairs." 

If under such circumstance the Society has real estate records extend- 
ing back to 1 590, the documents must be counted as unique, and are 
to be classed among the rarest and most interesting of its possessions. 
That the papers have added interest because of the genealogical complica- 
tions involved in them will appear later. 

Not less remarkable than the preservation of the documents must be 
considered the continued ownership of the house in the same family 
during such a long period of time and under the unfavorable conditions 
prevailing in St. Augustine. From its establishment and for a long period 
the place was small, scantily peopled and poverty-stricken. It was es- 
sentially nothing more than a garrison town, a fortified post, occupied by 
a transient military population serving its term of enlistment, here to-day 
and gone to-morrow. So late as 1 690 a proposal was submitted to the 
Spanish ministers to translate the post to Santa Maria de Galbe (Pensa- 
cola), so few were the inhabitants here and so hard the conditions of 
living. That a government official's family should have remained and 
perpetuated its line as a family for three hundred years appears ex- 
tremely improbable. 

The improbability is heightened when we consider the successive 
complete changes of population, with the accompanying summary race 
interruptions, which have taken place. When Great Britain acquired 
possession, it was after almost a hundred years of racial enmity and 
warfare between the English of South Carolina and Georgia and the 
Spaniards of Augustine; and when the hated British came to occupy 
St. Augustine in 1 763 the Spaniards went away. The Treaty guar- 
anteed religious freedom for the subjects of the two nations, but the 
British oath of allegiance involved abjuration of belief in the doctrine of 
Transubstantiation. It is not to be presumed that the Spanish owner ot 
the lot should have taken this oath. Twenty years later, in 1 783, the 
Spaniards returned and the English went away, there remaining only the 
Minorcans and Greeks and Italians, who had come up from New 
Smyrna during the British occupation. Thirty-eight years afterward, in 
1 82 1 , the Spaniards went and the Americans came. Spanish, English, 
Spanish, American — this is the story of change told by the three flags 
the Society displays on its house, each change of sovereignty and of race 
implying an interruption of family descent. Thus, while one may not 
say positively that the Historical Society's Spanish deputy of I 590 was 
not the progenitor of a line which persisted through the vicissitudes of 
these three centuries, it may at least be said that acceptance of the 
Society's assertion calls for a powerful exercise of the will to believe. 

i8 



Claim E^ — That traditions justify its assertions about the age 

of the house. 

The Society has recently advanced a blanket claim that traditions 
justify its several assertions respecting the age of the house. In connec- 
tion with the claim of documents showing the long possession of the 
house in the same family, it is pertinent to consider these traditions of 
which the Society now makes so much. 

When I pointed out that the 1 565 coquina house building monk story 
had no foundation in history, the Society rejoined that the tale was 
supported by traditions attaching to the house. 

At the meeting of the Board of Trade, February 28, one of the 
speakers, who was also a member of the Society, said: "There has 
never been written a comprehensive history of Florida, and many of the 
claims made by all historians are based upon traditions." (Evening 
Record, March 1 ). 

At the Society meeting of March 8 one of the speakers said: "We 
must remember that St. Augustine was founded 350 years ago, and for 
ages had no libraries or newspapers, which means that much of our 
history is based upon tradition handed down from father to son." An- 
other speaker, with childlike and touching faith in what dear teacher had 
told him, testified that "he had been taught in school that Ponce de Leon 
landed a little north of Fort Marion, and he did not think that Mr. 
Reynolds should be allowed to get away with his attacks upon the 
Ancient City's treasured traditions." The resolution adopted at the 
meeting asserted the Society's faith that its statements about the house 
were "as near the facts as true lovers of history can establish from 
meagre historical records and priceless traditions handed down from 
father to son." (Evening Record, March 9.) 

A member of the Society and of the Board of Trade wrote me 
March 11: "I do feel, as do scores of others here, that you have been 
unfair to every business interest in St. Augustine by your attacks upon 
our greatest asset — our history and cherished traditions." Another 
member wrote March 29: "It seems to me that the discussion can best 
be decided upon the actual facts available which bear upon the antiquity 
of St. Augustine buildings. In the absence of such facts, generally 
accepted traditions should, it seems to me, have almost equal weight 
with historical data." 

The handing down of traditions from father to son through the course 
of St. Augustine's centuries of change would have been subject to the 
same unfavorable conditions that have been noted as affecting adversely 
the continuance of an unbroken line of family descent. The circum- 
stances precluding the one would have precluded the other. 

19 



If the monk house-building story had been known to the lone married 
man of 1570 and handed down to his son (supposing he had a son) 
and thus started on its way as a tradition, it would have had but pre- 
carious chance of keeping itself alive through the succeeding generations, 
to that far-off day when it should be set on its feet by a Historical 
Society and a Board of Trade. If the tradition had indeed been 
handed down to these times, it would have been familiar, if to anybody, 
certainly (one might think) to the owners of the house in the line of 
descent from the deputy of 1590 to 1882. But that the owners at the 
close of that period had no knowledge of the tradition is indicated by 
what is told of Miss Nica Llambias in a subsequent page. 

The tradition that the St. Francis house was the oldest one here did 
not prevail in St. Augustine in 1869; for Dr. Daniel G. Brinton re- 
corded that another house was then considered the oldest in the city. 
(Guide Book to Florida and the South. Philadelphia. 1869. Page 67.) 

However all this may be, the question of the validity of the Society's 
claim of traditions attaching to its house is of no importance, because the 
Society's recourse to tradition is altogether unnecessary. The present 
owners of the house tell us that they have documents proving possession 
in the same family from 1590 to 1882. Having this direct document- 
ary evidence, the Society needs only produce the documents, and on the 
instant by such proof positive establish the truth of the Spanish deputy 
family claim, vindicate its own good faith, and confound anyone who 
has had the temerity to accuse it of fraud. Instead of doing this ob- 
viously sensible and convincing thing, the Society now tells us that its 
claims respecting the house on St. Francis street rest not on documentary 
evidence, but on traditions handed down from father to son. 

The natural assumption in explanation of such a course (I do not say 
that it is the right assumption) is that the Society has not the documents 
it says it has. And the reasonable conclusion from this is that it is only 
because the Society actually has no authentic historical data to sub- 
stantiate its claims, that it now invokes those traditions which are "cher- 
ished," "treasured," "priceless," and with history "our greatest asset," 
but non-existent. 



20 



Claim F — That the living room fireplace was here "in the days 

of long ago." 

A feature of one of the rooms is the fireplace, of which the Society's 
souvenir booklet says: **In the main living room is a very large open 
fireplace, which now as in the days of long ago radiates a cheerful 
glow on cool days." But according to the books, in the days of long 
ago they did not have fireplaces in St. Augustine. 

When the shipwrecked Quaker Jonathan Dickenson reached St. 
Augustine on a bitterly cold day in 1 696, the refugees, he relates, were 
received into the Governor's House, and "seeing how extream cold we 
were, he gave us a cup of Spanish wine and sent us into his Kitchen to 
warm ourselves at the Fire." And again, when clothing had been pro- 
vided, "we put on the linen and made all Haste into the Kitchen to 
the Fire." (God's Protecting Providence, page 92.) If the Gov- 
ernor's house in 1 696 did not have a fireplace at which the frigid 
refugees could warm themselves in such weather (Dickenson records 
"ice half an Inch thick" the next morning), it is improbable that the 
monks of St. Francis should have enjoyed that solace in their house in 
the hard winter of 1565-6, when Menendez recorded such suffering 
here from the cold. 

The writers in British times recorded that chimneys were introduced 
by the English. 

Wm. Stork (1769) wrote: "The winters are so mild that the 
Spaniards at Augustine had neither chimneys in their houses nor 
glass windows." (Description of East Florida, page 2.) 

Wm. De Brahm, Surveyor-General (1765), wrote: "No house 
has any chimney or fireplace. I he Spaniards made use of stone urns, 
filled them with coals left in their kitchens in the afternoon, and set 
them at sunset in their bedrooms to defend themselves against those 
winter seasons which required such care." (Manuscript in Library of 
Harvard University.) 

Romans (1775) wrote: "Till the arrival of the English, neither 
glass windows nor chimneys were known here." (History of Florida, 
page 262.) 

The Hessian surgeon Johann Schoepf here in 1784 wrote: "The 
houses are built quite after the Spanish fashion, with flat roofs and few 
windows. Here and there the English have houses with more windows, 
especially on the street side. They also built the first chimneys, for 
the Spanish formerly were content with no more than a charcoal fire 
placed under a tapestry hung table." (Keise durch einige der mittlern 
und siidlichen Vereinigten Nordamerikanischen Staaten nach Ost- 
Florida und den Bahama-Inseln. Morrison's translation, Vol. II, 229.) 

21 



The fact that a house has a fireplace to radiate a cheerful glow is 
presumptive evidence that the house was built after the British took 
over St. Augustine. Nevertheless, it may be that its fireplace is one 
thing about which the Historical Society has told the truth. For *'the 
days of long ago" is a relative term, particularly with reference to fire- 
places. It may refer back to the monks' house of 1563, or it may not 
go beyond the lives of living men. For when one recalls in after years 
the group about the fireplace in the old home, there needs have been no 
long lapse of time to give the picture place far back in "the days ot 
long ago." If we thus measure the phrase, not by historical periods, but 
by individual experience, it may perhaps be conceded that this one claim 
is valid. 



22 



THE HOUSE WAS NOT HERE IN 1778. 

Our examination of the historical records has shown us that in 1 565, 
when the Society claims its house was built by Franciscan monks, there 
were here no monks, no known coquina, no St. Augustine. 

We now come to later and documentary evidence beanng on the 
inquiry. First and most important is the British Crown grant of the lot 
on which the house stands. 

The Treaty of Paris in 1 763, by which Great Britain acquired 
Florida, provided with respect to Spanish landowners: "His Britanick 
Majesty further agrees that the Spanish inhabitants . . . may sell 
their estates provided it be to his Britanick Majesty's subjects, and 
bring away their effects as well as their persons without being restrained 
in their emigrations, . . . the term limited for this emigration 
being fixed to the space of eighteen months to be computed from the 
day of the exchange of the ratifications of the present treaty." At the 
expiration of that term the lands which had been abandoned, or of which 
the owners had not taken the oath of allegiance, became the property of 
the British Sovereign. A like procedure obtained at the change of 
dominion in 1 783 with respect to the abandoned property of the 
British. By the operation of this rule the lot passed into the possession 
of King George III. Here was a certain break in title from any 
original grantee, whether the Society's Spanish deputy of 1 590 or 
another. From King George III. the lot was transferred to Joseph 
Peavett by Crown grant in I 778. The instrument of the grant was for 
a long time in the possession of the late Miss Nica Llambias, who lived 
on St. Francis street. Mrs. Averette's statement of the terms of the 
grant was printed in my article on *'The Fakes of St. Augustine," as 
follows : 

"It was originally part of a grant given by George III. to Joseph 
Peavett, and is called in the grant 'Town lot No. 9, Society Quarter.' 
The grant is recorded in the Register's office in England, Book D, 
Fol. 2, pages 46 and 47, May 1st, 1 779, and is entered in the Audit- 
or's office Book A, page 2, Aug. 12th, I 781. 

"The grant provides that the grantee must pay yearly and every year 
one peppercorn if demanded ; that he must build within three years next 
after the date, July 16, 1 1TS, one good and sufficient tenantable house 
with brick chimney at least, and of the dimensions of 24 feet in length 
in front and at least 1 6 feet in breadth or depth. If the lot was not 
built on in that time, the grantee and his heirs must pay to the Crown 
£l yearly and every year until the house was completely finished. If 
not finished in ten years, the lot granted must revert to the Crown. The 
instrument was given under the Great Seal of East Florida by Gov. 
Patrick Tonyn, July 16th, 1778." Mrs. Averette has written me that 

23 



she took these details from the original document, when Miss Llambias 
had it. W. W. Dewhurst, Esq., of St. Augustine, who has seen the 
original grant itself, informs me that the details as printed are correct — 
"the grant in terms requires that the grantee must build within three 
years next after July 16th, 1778, one good and sufficient tenantable 
house." And he adds that the plot accompanying the grant "shows a 
large vacant lot fronting on St. Francis street and bounded east by an 
open space facing the water." 

The fact that the plot of the grant shows a vacant lot, and the stipu- 
lation in the grant that a house must be built on the lot to perfect the 
title, would seem to indicate that the Society's house built by the Fran- 
ciscan monks in 1565 and the home of many Spanish and English 
families was not standing here in 1 778. 

THE PEAVETT GRANT 

The history of the original document of the Peavett grant is interest- 
ing. It passed to Geronimo Alvarez when he acquired the lot, and in 
later years was one of the treasured possessions of Miss Nica Llambias, 
a niece of Antonio Alvarez. (Incidentally, Mrs. Averette has told me 
that Miss Llambias was much exercised over the misrepresentations 
made about the age of her uncle's house, and often so expressed herself 
to Mrs. Averette.) 

In 1910, when the subject of St. Augustine's oldest houses was 
under discussion, Mrs. Averette published the foregoing terms of the 
grant in the St. Augustine Evening Record, and said that shortly before 
that time the document had been stolen from Miss Llambias. Again 
ir 1918, when the Society was considering the purchase of the oldest 
house business, Mrs. Averette sent to the Society the same statement 
of the terms of the Peavett grant, to show that as to age the house 
was not what was claimed for it. Mr. Dewhurst tells me that since that 
time the original document itself, bearing the Great Seal of the Province 
of East Florida, has been sent to the Society, having been mailed to it 
anonymously. Unless then the Society has made some disposition of 
the paper, it has long had and now has in its own possession un- 
answerable documentary evidence that its house was not built by Fran- 
ciscan monks in 1565. 



24 



WHEN WAS THE HOUSE BUILT? 

This examination of the historical and documentary evidence in the 
case having shown that the claims of the St. Augustine Historical 
Society are fictitious, I am not called on to determine actually when 
the house was built. Such records as are available will give the ap- 
proximate date. 

During the British occupation, in the year I 778, as we have seen, 
the vacant lot was acquired by Joseph Peavett. It afterward passed 
to John Hudson, for the Spanish archives received by the United 
States at the cession in 1 82 1 show that when the abandoned property 
of the English was sold by the Spanish Government in I 783 this lot 
was sold as the property of John Hudson and was bought by Geronimo 
Alvarez. Mr. Alvarez remained in St. Augustine after the cession to 
the United States in 1 82 1 , and continued to hold the property. Mr. 
Dewhurst tells me that in 1831 the city tax assessor valued the small 
lot at the corner of Charlotte and St. Francis streets at $1,800; the 
small lot between that one and the Alvarez lot at $400, and this large 
Alvarez lot at $300, a value which would indicate either that there was 
no house on it, or that any house must have been a very poor one. The 
original appraisal signed by Antonio Alvarez and Andrew Anderson 
is in the office of the St. Johns County Abstract Company. The relative 
areas of the three lots and the significance of their comparative valuations 
may be appreciated by a reference to the Clements map of 1835, the 
original of which is in Tallahassee. 



/JnhnioMlvarts \ j^f^„ ^gro ] 

L 1 



r 






• 



&^/v«..:^'""1 John Hudson 
/3 ' /2 I ^/ 







fiUaru 



^./J/raresi Garcmti /flvares 




M. 

II 

G.W. 

fferpall 



Reproduction, same size, from "Plan of the City of St. Augustine." by 
Benj. Clernents and I. B. Clements. Deputy Surveyors. 1834-35. Scale 
80 feet to inch. Showing dimensions of the lots under appraisal. The 
appraisals were: No. 13 — $1,800; No. 12 — $400; No. 11 — $300. 

25 



Some time prior to 1 834, the stone of the old powder magazine and 
other buildings, which stood south of where the Flagler Hospital is 
now, was sold by the War Department. A purchaser of buildine: 
material at this sale was either Geronimo Alvarez or his son Antonio 
(the records of the Department will show which, as well as the precise 
date). The fair assumption is, and I am told that the current belief 
among the old residents of St, Augustine in the 1880's was, that the 
stone then purchased was used by Mr. Alvarez to build his St. Francis 
street house. It is known that Mr. Alvarez had two slaves who were 
stone masons. While the data here afforded do not fix the date pre- 
cisely, they do lead to the conclusion that the house was built between 
1831 and 1834. In 1839 Geronimo Alvarez deeded the property 
to his son Antonio, from whom it descended to his grand-daughter, 
Mrs. Acosta, by whose husband and administrator it was sold in 1 882, 
as has been related. 

THE GENEALOGICAL MIX-UP IN THE SPANISH FAMILY. 

This brings us to the close of the long period from 1590 to 1882, 
during which (as the Society says it has documents to show) the house 
"descended in the same family." The genealogical mix-up we spoke 
of is this. The German George III. and the English Joseph Peavett 
and John Hudson, according to the Society's "same family" docu- 
ments, must have been descendants of the Spanish deputy of 1 590, and 
the Greek Geronimo Alvarez and his descendants to 1 882 must have 
descended from the Spanish deputy, the German George III., the 
English Joseph Peavett and the English John Hudson. 

WHEN THE HOUSE BECAME "THE OLDEST." 

At the sale by order of the court in 1 882, the property was bought 
by William Duke, who afterwards conveyed it to the wife of 
Charles P. Carver. Dr. Carver enlarged the building and added the 
tower room, put in the colored glass windows from the old Presbyterian 
Church, decorated the exterior with sea shells of a form venerated by 
some savage tribes, set up in the yard the plaster casts from the Howard 
place, gave out that the house was the oldest in the United States, 
exacted from tourists an admission fee to inspect it as such, and 
thus by his ingenuity and showman's enterprise converted what not long 
before had been an unprofitable negro tenement into an easy money 
producer. It is said that he paid off the mortgage with the fake "oldest 
house" proceeds. 

From Dr. Carver the house passed into the possession of J. W. 
Henderson, who continued the business of oldest house. Then George 
Reddington ran it for several years. In 1 9 1 8 he sold the business to 
the St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute of .bcience. 

26 



THE SOCIETY AND THE HOUSE. 

Prior to this, during the life of Dr. De Witt Webb, founder of the 
Society and its president until his death, it was at one time proposed 
that the Society should take over the house and conduct it as the oldest 
house. He spurned the proposition as a fraud of which the Society 
could not be guilty. What was written in the article on the "hakes of 
St. Augustine" may be repeated here: "The St. Augustine Historical 
Society was organized in 1 884, chiefly by the efforts of Dr. De Witt 
Webb, who until his death was its president and guiding spirit. His 
portrait occupies a prominent place in the Society's house. If the Society 
were minded to do Dr. Webb's memory justice, it might well post a 
notice in connection with the portrait, setting forth the fact that when 
fire had destroyed the Society's former home and it was proposed to take 
the St. Francis street house and continue its exploitation as the oldest 
house (as has been done since his death) he indignantly denounced the 
scheme as involving a deception of the public the Society could not be 
party to." 

In 1 9 1 7 when the scandal of there being so many oldest houses in 
St. Augustine was under discussion, the Society appointed a com- 
mittee to investigate the subject. On hearing the committee's report at 
the November meeting of that year, the Society adopted a resolution 
which read: "Resolved, that upon the written report of the committee 
to investigate which is the oldest house in St. Augustine, the St. Augus- 
tine Historical Society and Institute of Science, from the report of the 
committee, just presented, cannot positively determine which is the oldest 
house in St. Augustine, but it is of the opinion, based upon the findings 
of this committee that the house known as the Geronimo Alvarez house 
is such." (St. Augustine Evening Record, Nov. 20, 191 7.) 

Evidently the records showing that the house had been built in 1565 
by Franciscan monks and had descended in the family of the Spanish 
deputy from 1 590 to 1 882 were not then available. These presumably 
were discovered in the following year, for according to the Society's 
statement printed in the souvenir booklet: "After a careful investigation 
extending over more than a year of records, data and maps from Spain, 
the British Museum and the Archives at Washington, the antiquity of 
this building was established to the satisfaction of the Historical Society 
and Institute of Science, and in order that it might be properly preserved 
for future generations, was purchased by it on November 15, 1918." 
(Souvenir of the Two Oldest Relics in the United States, page 2.) 

Under the new management the business thrived. The prestige of 
the title of "Historical Society" naturally served to strengthen the 
faith of the dupes who heard and believed the 1565 building date and 
the monk story. The St. Augustine Evening Record, which erstwhile 
had printed letters from visitors who thought themselves fooled, now 

2/ 



gave its own unqualified endorsement of the institution. In announcing 
the Society's acquisition of the business, it said: "There is no question 
about the antiquity of this old building, as the Historical Society fully 
investigated its claims to being the oldest house in the United States 
before considering the purchase. . . Much time and money has been 
expended in attempts to secure reliable data about the date that the old 
house was erected. The British Museum in London has been con- 
sulted and the Federal archives at Washington and elsewhere have been 
probed, the result satisfying the Historical Society that there is no build- 
ing in the United States that antedates this time-worn structure. The old 
building was at one time owned by the Franciscan monks, who came 
here under the Spanish regime." And of the trumpery collection of 
antiques it said: "Under the Historical Society the exhibit of interest- 
ing relics will have an official stamp of accuracy that the public may 
accept as reliable." (St. Augustine Evening Record, Nov. 16, 1918.) 

To this was added the official endorsement by the City Commission 
of the City of St. Augustine. This is displayed in the house, and is 
printed in the circular distributed to tourists. It is Resolution No. 1 1 6, 
"adopted in open session of the Commission this 1 7th day of December, 
A.D., 1918," and reads verbatim as follows: 

"WHEREAS, The St. Augustine Historical Society and Institute 
for Science has become owners of the house on St. Francis street, known 
as the Alvarez home. 

"In this old Alvarez home the Society exhibits an unusual collection 
of antiques, therefore, 

"BE IT RESOLVED, That the City Commission in meeting as- 
sembled do request and recommend to tourists a visit to the Old House 
on St. Francis street." (Society's circular.) 

The Evening Record's endorsement and the City Commission's recom- 
mendation and request to visit the place were given wide currency in 
circulars distributed to tourists. Drivers, chaufl^eurs, and sightseeing 
cars were paid so much a head for visitors brought to the place. Picture 
cards and books illustrating the house and the "antiques" were by the 
agency of the tourist disseminated throughout the land. The fame of 
the oldest house was spread abroad, and visitors flocked to it. In the 
season from November, 1918, to May, 1919, there were 19,000 
visitors; and in that from November, 1919, to May, 1920, the register 
showed 23,000 "ground through" the house, as the attendants express 
it. The visitors are not confined to winter tourists. In a single mid- 
summer month, July of 1920, the Record reported, "950 people were 
shown through the Oldest House on St. Francis street, which is the 
home of the St. Augustine Historical Society. The visitors' register at 
the Oldest House indicates that they come from far distant sections of 
the country, from Maine to California, and from nearby points, little 
towns throughout Georgia and Florida." (Record, Aug. 10, 1920.) 

28 



Claim G — That the well in the yard was blessed by the 

Monks. 

Thus far in discussing the Society's claims we have considered dry 
historical stuff, not interesting perhaps to a historical society which goes 
in rather for the "priceless traditions" it talks so much about. 

One of the "traditions," not "handed down from father to son," but 
handed out to tourists, is the story of the monk-blessed wishing well. A 
reference to the well was contained in a letter which Mr. M. S. Aver- 
ette wrote me under date of March 28, 1921 : "J. W. Henderson, who 
used to own the St. Francis street property, had a son Jay, who was 
one of my companions in St. Augustine. I well remember that Jay 
told me that his mother had had the well dug which now they use as a 
wishing well, and ne told me too how some one had fallen into the well 
before it was curbed. 

"As to the upper room now called the 'Chapel,' I one day said 
something about its being such a fine large room, when Jay told me 
that his mother had taken the partitions out and made it into a large 
room for him. I am sure that Jay was not a monk, and I never heard 
him speak of it as a chapel." 

What Mr. Averette says about the well might be construed as cast- 
ing suspicion on the Society's assertion that it had been "blessed by the 
monks," but as no remote date is claimed for the blessing, and as the 
monks of 1565-1590 are not specified, it might have been that some 
monks visiting St. Augustine after Mrs. Henderson had had the well dug 
bestowed their blessing upon it. Perhaps the unlucky wight who fell 
into the hole was a wandering monk who blessed it fervidly then and 
there, and wished himself well out of it. When one considers how many 
simple folk have peered into the well and wished a wish to be "granted 
within a year," one is inclined to indulge them the harmless delusion 
and to own that the story of the monkish blessing may be as authentic 
as are those which go with the "large solid brass knocker, which adorned 
the door of the Ponce de Leon palace at Seville;" the praying bench 
"used by the Franciscan monks during their occupancy of this house;" 
the sundry antiques the method of manufacture of which tells the trained 
eye of the wood-worker that they were produced at dates later than 
those specified in their labels; and the "Masonic table presented to 
Washington by Lafayette," which table has among its decorations two 
American flags, each flag bearing in the blue field forty-one stars, being 
one star for each State in the Union in the year I 795, when Lafayette 
sent the fraternal token to his old commander with whom he had fought 
under the banner of the Thirteen Stars. (There remains an interesting 
chapter to be written about this table with its 41 -starred flags. The 
"antique" is illustrated in the Society's booklet, "Two Oldest Relics.") 

29 



THE CONCLUSIONS FROM THE INQUIRY. 

I have given such historical facts with deductions and inferences 
drawn from them as bear on the question at issue. 

It has been found — 

That in 1565 there were no monks here ; 
That the coquina building stone was unknown; 
And that St. Augustine occupied another site. 

The results of the inquiry lead to the conclusion that the Society's 
claim of great antiquity for its building is unfounded, untrue and 
untenable. 

St. Augustine has had an eventful and romantic history, but in that 
history the house has had no recorded part. Nor do any traditions 
attach to it, not even of great age, for there are other houses here which 
are known to be older. The story that it was built in 1565 by the 
monks of St. Francis is a fiction of recent invention, invented and told 
for revenue only. The tens of thousands of tourists who have paid 
their admission fees to see the "oldest house" have been hoaxed. The 
age of three and a half centuries ascribed to the house is a fraud. The 
taking of money from visitors under the false pretense of showing them 
"the oldest house in the United States" is a swindle. 



THE OTHER ST. AUGUSTINE. 

To say, as has been said, that the city's attraction for tourists de- 
pends in any degree on oldest house and kindred fakes, is an insult to 
St. Augustine. Untold thousands of visitors were attracted to the old 
town and found their pleasure here before ever the St. Francis street 
fakers faked their fakes. Other untold thousands will come long after 
the fakers shall have lived their little hour and been forgotten. 

For these vulgar and impudent deceptions, engendered of ignorance 
and cupidity, are not the real things that count in St. Augustine. No 
more do those who invent and exploit and abet and defend the frauds 
truly represent the city. 

The visitor may be "ground through" the St. Francis street house. 
Fort Marion and the Ponce de Leon mission, imbibe the parrot lectures 
and go away with a head stufFed full of misinformation about a fanciful 
St. Augustine and its past. But there is another St. Augustine of which 
he will have learned little or nothing — the place of genuine historic in- 
terest and truly romantic associations. When he realizes that he has 
been duped, he may look on the town as one given over to fakes. But, 
in this respect also, there is another St. Augustine (if not of to-day, 
nevertheless of yesterday and of to-morrow), a St. Augustine abhor- 
rent of deceptions and intolerant of those who practice them. 

30 



7 he vendors of fakes, who have strayed in from other parts and set 
up shop here, do not represent the real personality of the community. 

A Historical Society, ignorant of the history of its ovv^n city, and 
giving out grotesque fabrications as historic truths, does not represent 
the intelligent many who are familiar with that history and disgusted by 
the Society's perversions of it. 

A newspaper, which finds itself sponsor for an undeserving enterprise, 
but delays to set itself right with its constituency, not only misses a fine 
opportunity to lead in vindication of the truth and of the honor of its 
home town, but fails as well to give expression to the real community 
conscience. 

A Board of Trade, whose members when the fake shows are criti- 
cized sound an alarm that the town's business interests are being dam- 
aged, and which Board later when the occasion calls for action side- 
steps any move to change the unsavory conditions, fails by such 
delinquency to proclaim the existence here of the rule of honest dealing, 
which as everywhere else so in St. Augustine is in force to control every 
legitimate business interest. 

A City Commission, which goes out of its way to endorse by resolu- 
tion an enterprise afterward shown to be fraudulent, and then pleads 
inability to counteract its endorsement of the fraud, because (as the 
City Manager wrote me the other day) "the city of St. Augustine is 
without municipal control in this matter," is a city government which by 
its indifference to the city's honor fails to reflect that civic pride, which 
I am convinced does exist in St. Augustine and when awakened will 
redeem the town from the odium brought on it by the individuals who 
are debasing its good name for their private gain. 

There is another St. Augustine, and the time will come when it will 
be heard. The true St. Augustine will assert itself. In that day, of the 
fakes of St. Augustine it shall be written, "They were." 

Charles B. Reynolds 
130 West 42d Street, New York, May. 1921. 



3477-250 

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